The “Declining Significance of Race” a text by William Wilson played a key role in terms of transforming the research agenda of Scholar working on the history of Afro-American. Wilson, an eminent Sociologist spent most of his career confronting one of the nation’s most perplexed topic: namely the deep and highly persistent inner city poverty in America. In this both highly acclaimed yet highly controversial book Wilson theorizes that the significance of race is waning, it therefore follows that among African Americans, ‘class’ was comparatively more important in terms of determining an individual’s life chances rather than race which historically held more credential. Regarded as theoretically ambitious, this book is an attempt to
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To examine Wilson’s work in this book one needs to examine history especially around the time that he wrote this book. Some of the keen insight one may be able to pin point in terms of giving support to his theory is that during the period of the 1960’s &1970’s changes had indeed occurred or were appearing that seemed to be consistent with Wilson’s theorizing of a ‘color blind society.’ According to Freeman (1973) more blacks were achieving visibility in what was seen historically as areas that were closed to them, for example for the first time they were occupying managerial and professional positions in the work force and their visibility on the television was evident. Wilson even personalized this phenomena by stating that he too was experiencing the shift from color to class since he acquired the position of a ‘Black Professor’ at the University of Chicago in 1972 and by the time he published his book he was already the Chairman. Wilson further anchored his theoretical position about class becoming more important by highlighting documented increase of college educated blacks occupying white collar occupations. According to Wilson for these graduates the connection between skin color and their position in …show more content…
‘The truly disadvantaged’ tried to incorporate family as well as culture into a socio democratic examination of inner city poverty and the underclass. Despite a strong support for family structure as having a key role he locates the origin of the under-class in Afro-male joblessness. Black inner city joblessness is, in turn, explained by large-scale economic shifts, which he claimed was in fact interacting with a legacy of past racial discrimination, as well as various demographic factors. In his final analysis Wilson claims however that the blame lies primarily with larger, social structural forces. Wilson is not only bold in his analysis but makes strong recommendations to the nation's leaders as to what to do about the growing problem. Wilson's policy recommendations grow directly out of his analysis. The author’s groundbreaking study clearly points to the urgent necessity of removing the structural holes of economic inequality in order to produce racial and social equality. As such implementing a universal economic reform programs. The strengths behind Wilson’s essay targeted historical facts, passion for equal rights as opposed to race specific rights and formulation for future
To examine Wilson’s work in this book one needs to examine history especially around the time that he wrote this book. Some of the keen insight one may be able to pin point in terms of giving support to his theory is that during the period of the 1960’s &1970’s changes had indeed occurred or were appearing that seemed to be consistent with Wilson’s theorizing of a ‘color blind society.’ According to Freeman (1973) more blacks were achieving visibility in what was seen historically as areas that were closed to them, for example for the first time they were occupying managerial and professional positions in the work force and their visibility on the television was evident. Wilson even personalized this phenomena by stating that he too was experiencing the shift from color to class since he acquired the position of a ‘Black Professor’ at the University of Chicago in 1972 and by the time he published his book he was already the Chairman. Wilson further anchored his theoretical position about class becoming more important by highlighting documented increase of college educated blacks occupying white collar occupations. According to Wilson for these graduates the connection between skin color and their position in …show more content…
‘The truly disadvantaged’ tried to incorporate family as well as culture into a socio democratic examination of inner city poverty and the underclass. Despite a strong support for family structure as having a key role he locates the origin of the under-class in Afro-male joblessness. Black inner city joblessness is, in turn, explained by large-scale economic shifts, which he claimed was in fact interacting with a legacy of past racial discrimination, as well as various demographic factors. In his final analysis Wilson claims however that the blame lies primarily with larger, social structural forces. Wilson is not only bold in his analysis but makes strong recommendations to the nation's leaders as to what to do about the growing problem. Wilson's policy recommendations grow directly out of his analysis. The author’s groundbreaking study clearly points to the urgent necessity of removing the structural holes of economic inequality in order to produce racial and social equality. As such implementing a universal economic reform programs. The strengths behind Wilson’s essay targeted historical facts, passion for equal rights as opposed to race specific rights and formulation for future